Bus Stations (Or Groups Of Town Centre Bus Stops) That Need/Needed Stances Renumbered

[tbtc]

There’s a popular thread in the Railway side of the Forum asking about remembering of platforms at train stations, which is a complicated subject (often expensive to amend, but the piecemeal development of stations means there are a few where a platform has to be numbered out of sequence due to changes):

Why aren't the platforms at UK railway stations renumbered?

Hopefully a self-explanatory title, but sitting on Shrewsbury railway station yesterday, I started wondering why the platforms were numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. I mean, clearly at some point there were 8 platforms (though not sure if the prison platform would've been numbered!), but there's now...

railforums.co.uk

Also, there are some big railway stations where any numbering is going to confuse some people (Edinburgh Waverley seems too complicated for some otherwise intelligent people)

But are there any bus stations/ stances that have (or used to have) perplexing numbering? Presumably not many, since it’d be easy to amend numbers overnight (no multi million pound signaling systems to worry about!)

Or badly signposted layouts, where it was obvious that the three rows of stances were A/B/C but there was nothing to tell unwary passengers that “D” represented the bus stops on the street outside the bus station?

Or town centres where the council have tried to bring some order to a disperse set of bus stops, but only ended up causing more confusion (e.g. HS1-HS9 should denote High Street stops but for some reason that includes a stop round the corner on a different road)?

Happy to take historic examples of (potentially) confusing numbering/lettering, since bus stations aren’t as common as they once were

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

There’s a popular thread in the Railway side of the Forum asking about remembering of platforms at train stations, which is a complicated subject (often expensive to amend, but the piecemeal development of stations means there are a few where a platform has to be numbered out of sequence due to changes):

Why aren't the platforms at UK railway stations renumbered?

Hopefully a self-explanatory title, but sitting on Shrewsbury railway station yesterday, I started wondering why the platforms were numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. I mean, clearly at some point there were 8 platforms (though not sure if the prison platform would've been numbered!), but there's now...

railforums.co.uk

Also, there are some big railway stations where any numbering is going to confuse some people (Edinburgh Waverley seems too complicated for some otherwise intelligent people)

But are there any bus stations/ stances that have (or used to have) perplexing numbering? Presumably not many, since it’d be easy to amend numbers overnight (no multi million pound signaling systems to worry about!)

Or badly signposted layouts, where it was obvious that the three rows of stances were A/B/C but there was nothing to tell unwary passengers that “D” represented the bus stops on the street outside the bus station?

Or town centres where the council have tried to bring some order to a disperse set of bus stops, but only ended up causing more confusion (e.g. HS1-HS9 should denote High Street stops but for some reason that includes a stop round the corner on a different road)?

Happy to take historic examples of (potentially) confusing numbering/lettering, since bus stations aren’t as common as they once were

Not so much an issue of numbering but the layout of Guildford's hell hole of a bus station makes it interesting to catch a bus there.

The old Darlington bus station had no stand 1, nor 8 or 9. Think it was because it was designed around 30 feet long vehicles (in a U shape) but that the use of those stands would obstruct the entrance (1) or getting round the end (8/9)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/77751...dd-X3Mvr3-XeHwPw-hmoBfS-2iRoM9L-U14njw-qQrUUE - photo Dick Darlington on Flickr

 

[Andyh82]

For your second point talking about City Centres I would say Leeds

They’ve recently replaced a decades old system where every stop in the city centre had a functional but unique code - F5, T7, M2 etc to a system where there are about 10 different stop A, B, C etc but all with a flowery name - Cultural A, Station A, Trinity A, Wellington A depending on which part of the city that stop has been placed into with arbitrary lines drawn across the continuous city map


Going way back in time to the old Bradford Interchange you had 24 stands on each platform, but only the even numbers (in the main) were ever used

 

[Flange Squeal]

This perhaps wasn’t majorly confusing, but when Farnborough ASDA had its bus stop (served by routes 2 and 41) remodelled, it went from essentially an unglamorous - almost hidden - single stop you had to reverse out of transformed into two drive-through stops offering a much more passenger friendly experience. It’s all a bit irrelevant now as they are no longer served by stage carriage services (they now sit in the middle of car access to the car park), however the two stops were both labelled Z. This didn’t seem
to make a lot of sense as the next stops along the routes were W/X then further along Y. Farnborough doesn’t have any stops U or V, so it would possibly have made sense for these to be U/V as the starting point for routes 2/41, which then set off on their respective journeys passing Farnborough stops W/X and then Y along the way in that order.

IMG_1897 (2)

Stagecoach South (Hants & Surrey) Volvo Olympian / Alexander RL 16305 (S305 CCD) is seen at Asda, Princes Mead, Farnborough, Hampshire on 07/07/2015. It was parked up here prior to working the 16:20 Farnborough Technology College - Elvetham Heath, Ulric House service 419.

flic.kr

(Photo shows the two ASDA stops in Farnborough, both labelled as Z)

 

[aliceh]

I've always found Bournemouth town centre's a little in need of some rethinking. Stops A, B and C are at the now lesser-used Triangle (I think A and C don't see any buses), D and E are stops around the back of the shopping area, and the main Gervis Place stops are M to Z. There's no stop K or L - although according to the more website, stop K is on Priory Road, way out of any central interchange. Then you have Westover Road which has stops with numbers (1-3), there's AA which is outside St Peter's Church, and BB, CC and DD which are at the pier - the stop opposite the pier is, as you would assume, HH. THere's no EE, FF or GG.

It's just a whole mess.

 

[ElBoiii]

In Sheffield Interchange, Platform E is for coaches but the platform signs don't say that AFAIK, meaning it takes a bit longer to learn. Not large but mildly infuriating.